72 posts.....

Its been two years, I started blogging. So far 72 posts (not bad number!). It started with a post describing an unique experience in one of my college days. Down the time, I declared, re-declared in many of the posts stating that I have re-started blogging after long time giving an irrelevant reason of my return after a gap! I have changed blog page themes and the topics many a time. The topics ranged from super flopped 10K PC to Einstein's childhood photo post to latest Google product introduced to new broadband technology - BOP to a more serious post about Gandhi to personal experiences on teenage crush, learning table tennis, priceless real time learnings from real people, last day post and thanks giving to an insane post....... the list goes on to 72. I generally feel and also admit that I need to improve a ton in terms of quality and style of my writing. And more importantly the types of content I pen here should also be align to interests of mine and yours!. Hope, I will better myself in every post in coming days.

Karan-struck!

Most of the time, when I see Karan Thapar interviewing an important person, I will be immersed in awe due to his vast repertoire of knowledge, his unique style of questioning coupled with his charisma. I have been seeing his shows, earlier HardTalk India in BBC and now Devil's Advocate in CNN IBN, though not regularly.

Last week, he interviewed Mr. Sitaram Yechury of CPI-M about the latest & hottest topic - Indo-US nuclear deal. This is most happening topic, which perhaps decides our government's future and India's energy needs and it is the headline grabber in almost all the newspapers and TV new channels at present. I think, this will continue until some outcome emerges and before it fades away from the short term public memory. After watching the interview, you will be struck with two things. First, you will be awestruck with how Karan Thapar blasts his guest with pertinent questioning backed up with his wide knowledge in Indo-US N deal and second, you will be lightning struck how really, our political leaders want to bring positive changes to the country, setting aside their ideologies.

Mr. Yechury went on lambasting during the interview, at one point he asks Karan Thapar to speak like an Indian! Obviously, he lost his ground in the interview and at the same time Karan Thapar also showed unusual but subtle motive to 'prove a point' on the show. A mixed response in the comment section of the video says it all.

Renting your idea

Recently one of the stories being well discussed, written, pondered & argued is about NetFlix vs Blockbuster. You ever wonder what in the world those terms meant? If yes, then you are in the same position as mine few days back. Here goes, what they are and what they mean to you and me. Netflix and Blockbuster are online DVD rental service companies. I think, this must be barest introduction one can give. Anyways, I will pour more info on that, in coming lines. (check out the link, on their business model).

I have good number of feeds in my Google reader to spend a wonderful Sunday afternoon as a information miner, mining about 60 subscriptions. I recently went though couple of blogs and websites feeds using Google Reader, these companies (NetFlix and Blockbuster) often showed their presence for number of reasons in these sites. Check here, here and here for more gyana on what exactly going on.

To give you a snap shot of what is this all about, here goes my bodhana:

Netflix has been in DVD rental business for a long time. It has innovated a new way of doing rental business. Making the business completely online. Whats the big deal making a business to e-business one might ask? Here is the real difference Netflix had made. It introduced one of the coolest ways of renting DVDs online. It has vast range of DVD movies and offer customers number of plans like - keep the DVDs for any number of days and watch them as much as one wants. It made the model so simple that even a common person with enough common sense can copy the model and run his/her own DVD rental business. All the DVDs transported through postal service with no charge on customer side! Two DVDs (in some plan, unlimited DVDs) at a time! Free Delivery to home! No late fees! and with voice customer support too. One might expect it should be ruling the market. Guess what, it had ruled once, but not any more. It seems, it is having worst days in recent times and losing its customer base due to enormous competition by the relatively new player Blockbuster.

Ambani in making

By looking at these stories, I think DVD rental is a huge business in USA. If this statement is true, then there should good reservoir of market potential in India too. The tiger (Indian market for DVD rental) is in hibernation state now. It should be awakened and tapped. World, I started to think in these terms..... beware! ;)

So I thought to, up my sleeves and there came a sweet shocker. There are lot of companies in India doing online DVD rental business!. In fact, these companies long ago well established. This is what we call in economics as Opportunity Cost! I read it somewhere in one of the economic courses I had during my engineering. (See, how well I am informed. Actually the term should be "Opportunity Lost".)

Copy Cats

I went through couple of sites (Indian versions) - MovieMart & Seventymm, which are the same old stories. They have copied from the success stories of Netflix and Blockbuster. I could find the same mantra - Two DVDs at a time! Free Delivery! and No late fees! in their sites

Companies like Clixflix, serves its members through stores, the phone, sms and the Internet. Apart from this deviation, the story and model are very similar. There is no innovativeness and it is just "follow the leader" concept. Only inspirations and no creativity. Just being copy cats. See how simple to pin point someone and say things which you will be trying to say when other people have had already implemented your idea (or inspiration)!

Disclaimer:

All the information given in the post is theoretical experience only. That is, the information processed & digested, given in the links and other online sources only. Yet to subscribe to a online DVD rental service. :)

Story of "what made me to learn Table Tennis".

It was some day in Feb 2007. It was around 7:00 pm in the evening. After a day of hard work, I ventured out to play Table Tennis (TT) in my employer's campus with my friend, who has the same skill as mine in playing the game. Our TT skills are at the best you can call it as "newbie" skills. While me and my friend trying our hands in the game, two people came near us. There were couple of tables present, so we got to share the table in round robin basis. Those two people - I guess one is Project leader and other his subordinate. The subordinate was a new babe of the campus at that time! They came and proposed an idea which made me feel like earth shaking.

Me and my fella formed a team and that girl and her supervisor formed another. Then the actual story started. We started to play. Initially, I thought at least the girl would be in my level in terms of TT skills, so I should be competing with only one guy. But in reality the story was different. She was just kept hitting in the right areas and scoring points with her quick reflexes. The earth shaking feeling was no more. It was replaced by "earth devastated by an asteroid" feeling. We played 5 matches and our team lost all of them thanks to the way me and my poor fella played and to her serves and returns. I wont say she was the best, but better than her supervisor. After one agonising hour, the show finally came to an end.

Men's DNA make-up is such a way that it is very hard to digest a defeat at the hands of women unless they are proven exceptionally talented. I fell prey to this so called male ego and it hit me like anything. There were lot of questions running in my mind, like "what would she think of my no performance?", "what on earth made me to play like this and fail to give a fight?" and things like that. And my fellow pal is no mood for it. He displayed no emotions. No regrets.

That moment something drove me to take up a challenge. A challenge to learn and play TT. From the next day onwards, I started to stay late in the evening in office, though my work demanded in some days, and practiced TT. I started to watch how good players play and then tried to implement in my game. Me and my friend practiced TT whenever we got time. We played with lot of good playing people. We lost many matches, but we were improving our game. This made me to play and practice more. As days passed, we actually started to win matches with our good play. Our own game and my skills improved greatly.

The wonderful thing is, more and more I started to play well and appreciate the game, I also started to forget the incident which triggered me to learn the game. Eventually, one fine day, by pure chance, we played against the same girl and her supervisor. This time, we overwhelmed them with our range of shots and serves. We won good number of matches against them and with lot other people. And I can say I have improved my game to a great level.

Success is a relative term. If I consider the level to which I have improved my TT skills is a success, then behind this success, that girl is the reason. So I should thank her for this little success of mine! No wonder this saying is so popular - "Behind every successful man, there is a woman" :)

Place-O-maniac!

This is first time I started to live without my family (Parents & siblings). Recently I left my home town (Chennai) & came to the silicon valley of India. I never expected to be home sick or feel senti of having left my family. Expectedly, I never do, till now. But I have some kind of attachment to the places I live and breathe. For the one last time, when I left my previous employer & the bus - I used to travel to work, some kind of separtness I felt. When I left my home, I felt as though I will never come back. For that matter, I was put up temporarily in a guest house in bangalore. When I left that place to move over to a somewhat permanent place, I felt the similar kind of "separtness". I wonder why it is not the same way with the people I move with!

Is this kind of mania or phobia? or it just my cerebral mapping with the places I visit? or is it due to the by-product of my zodiac sign feature? or is it just I like to live blissfully single (as my friend puts). I don't know. But soon I should sniff out the cause. If this is the effect, then there should be definetly a cause to it, as there is no effect without a cause according to some Indian school of thought! (Wow, what a ending! Pat my back. Few of you should have smelt blood flowing in your ears.)

I am leaving to my hometown this weekend after Ages! - a long gap of 13 days!

Alluring CVs!

These photos are some of the snapshots of one of the funnier and creative resumes I have come across.




This guy uses HTML tags for the headings & for endings!! I Also I heard from one of my HRs, that one of the resumes she got is actually a C++ program. She said that if you execute the program (resume), you get his resume in actual proper format as output!!

Isn't it creative way of expressing and showcasing your skills to your prospective employer.

P.S.: I did that hiding of CTC components in second photo. :)

Four stories and the priceless takings

Recently I met with four people. They gave me insights on things I never cared to give a glance at. But there are true learnings waiting for me.

The four people from four different walks of life. One is a software engineer, one is from Indian Navy, another working in an orphanage and last person is a plastic article vendor.

Each one is unique in terms of their background, their aspirations, their priorities in their lives and their attitude towards life. I had enough time to interact with all these people individually, to get good insights. The platform for all these meetings is a car-driving school. All came (including me) for one goal, to get a four wheeler license!! Let me tell you about these people before going to my insights. This may stretch the lines of this post a longer, pls bear with me till then.

Software Engineer:

This guy is at very comfort zone. Good job, bulky wallet, went couple of times for on site assignments, married and well settled. Man from stone age never satisfied with what he has. So as this guy. (Incl me, but few are exceptions). From day one, I were discussing with him about how he is working, how much he earned during on site assignments, about his esops, projects he had handled and other things related to his job. He is some kind of confident and displayed "knows all" attitude. He is in some kind of thinking like what life can give him back as though he has given out all his best.

The Indian Navy Personnel:

This person is basically from Kerala. He is in thirteenth year of service at present. I think this is quite an achievement by itself, given the fact the kind of jobs and the packages comes with them, now a days in the market. He has his family in Kerala. Once a while he goes to his native. Half of the time, he mixes Mallu (Malayalam) with English while speaking. Had bit of hard time in understanding him. This person is working in Indian Navy. I had poor knowledge to differentiate between people working in navy , cargo and passenger line, until he enlightened me. He also some kind of not satisfied, and some kind of complaining about how his companions being payed handsomely in Cargo and in passenger ships and about his poor paying. He also did similar complains and blabbered about his job. For the first time I understood why Navy exercises are executed between the countries. His aspiration to get early retirement (15 years) and look for a good job outside to take care of his family for rest of his life.

The Plastic Vendor:

Couple of times, I saw this person bribing the trainer which irritated me. Once I caught him after the training, asked him why he is bribing, though he paid 2k rupees for the training. He answered that by bribing, he could get special attention. I condemned him saying that is not necessary and explained him that he can always demand from the trainer. This stuck this 44 year old (Age defies him, in this situation). Next day, I asked him why he want to go for a license. He wants to drive auto-rickshaws or taxis for his daily bread. He also told how he lost his money in all the small businesses he had done thru the years and landed up this way. He declared the amount he is spending (2k) for license, is huge for him to bear (This made me think how carelessly we spend money without knowing its true value). I can observe from his speech, how much financial adversity he had gone thru. He calls me as "Sir", to my embarrassment, as I am at least 20 years younger to him!! So ignorant, so unexcited. Life looks burden for him.


The "Orphanage" Teenager:

This person's story really moved me. He is used to be very punctual in trainings. One day, casually I asked him where he is working? He said he is working in Indian Railways. "Huh?" was my initial reaction. He looks like "just entered" college student. Asked him, what he is actually doing? He explained which I took good amount of time to re-ask and to understand. His actual work is to find children working in railway platforms, trains and stations. He tracks them, keep records on them and report them to his supervisors. He used to find children who are orphaned and handover them to their parents if their correct whereabouts are found or hand over them to a children orphanage nearby. Worst thing is, he informed me that if he finds the orphan child's parents, he or the orphanage people have to convince some of the parents to take their children back. I asked him, if he has given any designation to the job he is doing, just to find out he is really employed in Indian Railways. To my surprise, he never understood what I am trying to ask. He studied up to 9th std and after that he discontinued to take this job. I asked him why he haven't continued, for that he replied that he is not interested. I was thinking that his parents were responsible and asked him where he is put up with, for which he replied that shook me. He was brought up in the same orphanage for which he is working now. When he was telling this, I could see the pain not having some body to take care of, in his eyes. For the first time in my life, I understood that my so called problems are nothing before him. He is trying to get license as he wants to go to Dubai ( for applying passport, he needs proof. So this driving license will get him to get that). He is paying the training amount in installments.


India is certainly, a land of contrasts. There are people who never understand what starving is and there are people who have to fight for the same starving throughout their lives. Most of us, in comfort zone, never knew the real value of money and spend unnecessarily on extra foods, flashy clothes, films et all. The fraction of the amount spent on this can feed many families in our country.

We always compare ourselves with our peers. If we are not up to the mark with our peers, we complain (I am very good complainer. Ask some of my friends, they will tell you big stories) that we didn't have this, that et others. The software engineer always pours his lament on how his company not giving hikes, appraisals and other things. Though he is very much in comfort zone, he still laments. If he gets something, the lamenting won't stop, but it will take into some other shape. (My personal experience too).

The shrewd Keralite spent most of his youth to the services of Nation. And also he has his own expectations and lamenting. Though, much I didn't get from him, but he displayed courage and positive attitude towards his coming days.

Ignorance is bliss, says many. But this plastic vendor's ignorance may not be so. I understood life is unfair game. What made this person as he is now - ignorant, oblivious to the fact to the extent the external world is changing..... But this person is driven by one thing - his family.

The orphaned teenager really made me to realize two things. First, none of our problems are nothing if we face it. Second, I am very fortunate of not having to go thru the ordeal as he is going thru.

I am no more complainer from now on. :-)